ehind the forest, and the twilight advanced, the deeper dusk
following in its trail, a cold wind began to blow out of the north, and
Robert, as Tayoga had predicted, was thankful now that he had retained the
buffalo robe, despite its weight. He wrapped it around his body and sat on
a blanket in a thicket. Tayoga, by his side, used his two blankets in a
similar manner, and they ate of the deer which they had had the forethought
to cook, and make ready for all times.

The dusk deepened into the thick dark, and the night grew colder, but they
were warm and at ease. Robert was full of courage and hope. The elements
and all things had served them so much that he was quite sure they would
succeed in everything they undertook. By and by, he stretched himself on
the blanket, and clothed from head to foot in the great robe he slept the
deep sleep of one who had toiled hard and well. An hour later Tayoga also
slept, but in another hour he awoke and sat up, listening with all the
marvelous powers of hearing that nature and cultivation had given him.

Something was stirring in the thicket, not any of the wild animals, big or
little, but a human being, and Tayoga knew the chances were a hundred to
one that it was a hostile human being. He put his ear to the earth and the
sound came more clearly. Now his wonderful gifts of intuition and forest
reasoning told him what it was. Slowly he rose again, cleared himself of
the blankets, and put his rifle upon them. Then, loosening the pistol in
his belt, but drawing his long hunting knife, he crept from the thicket.

Tayoga, despite his thorough white education and his constant association
with white comrades, was always an Indian first. Now, as he stole from the
thicket in the dark, knife in hand, he was the very quintessence of a great
warrior of the clan of the Bear, of the nation Onondaga, of the great
League of the Hodenosaunee. He was what his ancestors had been for
unnumbered generations, a primeval son of the wilderness, seeking the life
of the enemy who came seeking his.

He kept to his hands and knees, and made no sound as he advanced, but at
intervals he dropped his ear to the ground, and heard the faint rustling
that was drawing nearer. He decided that it was a single warrior who by
some chance had struck their trail in the dusk, and who, with minute pains
and with slowness but certainty, was following it.

His course took him about thirty yards among the bushes and then throug